Only If For A Night
by Jade de Green Queen
Summary: Remember Eris? Well, Eris has found something very, very intriguing, something she desperately wants to destroy. But will her interference have the desired effect, or will it make matters much, much worse? Autumn's here, too...with her past reminding her, does she actually feel the desire to help one of the least-liked people out there? (Hurt/Comfort and Humor, too.)
1. Here to Relive Your Darkest Moments

This is actually supposed to come after Wild Faerie Dance, but I just couldn't help it - it's on my mind even as I work on the chapters for the other story now. Hopefully, as I post this, my hunger for it will be satisfied and I can actually finish the other one :/ And the titles for the chapters are all going to be lyrics from Florence and the Machine songs...yeah :)

* * *

Eris sighed. Fate was so frustrating, especially when she wasn't allowed to tamper with it! Why wasn't she allowed to screw up the lives of four people she _hated_? It just wasn't _fair_; chaos was her forte, she was _supposed_ to make everyone miserable. It was her _job_. She really, really wished she could just, just this once, mess everything up without breaking rules - it would, by far, be the best disaster she'd caused amongst the immortals for ages - ages meaning weeks, in Eris' terms. (The last best pranks/tamperings she'd contrived consisted of putting a scorpion down the back of Mother Nature's dress and managing to convince Jack Frost that Autumn was trying to murder him in his sleep.)

Curse rules. Curse them over and over and over, she repeated in her mind, sighing again and weaving some quick glowstrings - sending them outside to wreck havoc. It was a habit of Eris' to express whatever she felt in her powers...most of the time that meant she was mad and taking it out on innocents. Almost immediately, the side of a nearby building collapsed.

She didn't mean to make them _that_ strong. _I must be really mad if that's how much damage two glowstrings do. Crap._

A tap on the shoulder interrupted her thoughts. Melanctha stood there, looking curiously at her with misty-grey eyes. She signed out a sentence so quickly that Eris had to ask her to repeat it.

"What's wrong with you, you just wrecked the new building! You weren't supposed to-"

Eris held her hands to stop her from talking - Melanctha hated that, and harrumphed.

"What's wrong with me is, we've had the most interesting development in the line of Fate since the admission of the Snowflake as one of the Guardians. Involving, of course, the lovely poly-polar leaf queen, our brethren in the man-dress-"

Melanctha snorted and shook in silent laughter.

"Inspectress Cavity and Shock-White Freaksnow - and yes, that's a pun on freakshow...the greatest mix, I know right?! But honestly, I can't even mess it all up. Agh! You have _no idea_ how bad I want to!"

"I do too have an idea - you want to mess this up just as much as you like peanut butter and pickles, am I right?" Melanctha signed.

"Yes, just like peanut butter and pickles. It would be _so. Deliciously. Chaotic. And. Cruel._ But I can't!" Eris made a sound that was the very embodiment of aggravation (one often supported by her,) and sat herself down on a chair - black and cushiony, two things Eris liked best in furniture. (Besides tatters, rips, and shreds, since destruction always came first.)

Melanctha smiled in the motherly way that was Melanctha - knowing just how much Eris enjoyed destruction.

"Oh, Melanctha, I _wanna ruin it so bad it's killi-eh-eh-ing me!_ The best. Thing. Ever. Is. Right. There. For. DESTRUCTION!" Eris giggled darkly, then reverting again to being angry. "Stupid rules!"

'Maybe if you give whatever it is time to think about, you can find a way to tear it to pieces without breaking rules,' Melanctha suggested.

"Good idea...yea, I'll just wait a while. I'm sure Mother Nature could use another dose of hecticness...hmm. Hey, don't you think it's weird that Mother Nature isn't in charge of the seasons? All she really does is plant stuff...ah, well. Melanctha, can you get me some peppermint? I've got to concentrate. Maybe the solution to this'll be in my library."

Melanctha nodded and headed to the cabinets (all painted different colors). She knew that Eris was smart, and coy, and very determined...but sometimes she could be a bit rash. Melanctha remembered when they were young, Eris thought it would be hilarious if she sent a disease to ravage the people...what had they called it? Oh, the Plague - or the Black Death...it hadn't turned out so well, and that was the cause for all of the rules that Eris had to go by.

If there was a solution at all, to whatever Eris' problem was, Eris would find it, Melanctha knew. Eris was the best of the best.

Melanctha just hoped that she wouldn't overdo it.

Melanctha also knew that if it was up to Eris, the whole world would tumble into disorganization and doom, so overdoing it was a reasonable concern. That was why Eris was the head of the Council of Darkness, and not her, or Hadrian, or Crevan, or anyone. (Of course, Eris never attempted to do that to the world, since that was against the rules. There had to be balance.)

And wasn't that the reason why the Council expelled _certain_ members? Attempting to distort that balance?

Melanctha glanced over at Eris (having already gotten the peppermint), already noticing the mischievous glint in those mismatched eyes.

_Here we go again_.

"Now, I can't do anything to help the speared..." Eris muttered, "But maybe, maybe I can do something to _alleviate_ that burden..." she laughed. It was one of the familiar, sinister laughs that Melanctha had heard before Eris created...

Well, chaos.

She'd heard the same laugh when Eris watched the misery of others with pleasure - whoever was speared, was in for it, and in for it big time. Her best friend never missed an opportunity to get inside someone's head. Sometimes, Melanctha thought it was funny.

Considering the prementioned crowd that Eris seemed focussed on, Melanctha was anxious. Her friend's plan couldn't be good, for anyone, really...oh, bother, and if she'd have to fix it in some way, shape, or form...Eris was going to pay. She could already tell, it wasn't a good idea...

And if she had to make Eris pay, Melanctha knew exactly how. She was, after all, the Silencefae, and a member of the Council of Darkness herself.

"Hey, Melanctha, check this out! I didn't know we had a lineage book," Eris called from her chair, and Melanctha turned to find a _huge_ book almost covering Eris herself.

"And...ohmystingleafinggoodness, come look! Look at that! I cannot believe...now _that_ is something I can mess with. Think Mother Nature knows who at least one of her parents is? Booyah! I can screw with him about that, too..._man, Melanctha_, this is _so_ awesome...but it's not going to help me this time. Can you put this in the keepers pile?"

Melanctha sighed. She would have to use glowstrings - the book was so _big_, she didn't even know how Eris had picked it up - to move it into the pile that filled the corner of the room. Sometimes, only sometimes, these habits of Eris' got annoying.

Eris was laughing again, digging through a book titled 'The Minds of Darkness' greedily. Yes, Melanctha had a very, very bad feeling about this. Very, very, very bad.

'Eris,' she signed. Eris didn't seem to notice, so Melanctha cautiously approached her in her chair and tapped her on the shoulder.

"What?"

'Are you sure this is going to be alright? I mean, the people you mentioned are kind of important-'

Eris grabbed her hands again. Melanctha growled involuntarily, glaring at the Doomfae, who didn't seem to catch the hint - Melanctha knew that even if she had, she probably wouldn't care, since she really had nothing to threaten Eris with at all.

"Absolutely positively, it is. What could happen that _I_ can't fix? Besides, you're going to love what I've got planned. If it all works out, we'll have the _most unlikely and troublesome scandal there ever was,_ with just a hint of _calamity_."

Melanctha shrugged, doubting Eris. The Doomfae sighed and reclined in her chair, nonchalantly placing the peppermint in her mouth. "Evrbody luff c'lam tead," came out the garbled sentence, "speshussly weh it sshh people theh doan lihk."

All the Silencefae could do was roll her eyes, play along, and hope, no, pray, that nothing would go horrifically wrong.

* * *

I'm sure you can imagine that it _will, _but, um, I'll apologize beforehand for leaving you with only this chapter. I won't be updating for a while, not until Wild Faerie Dance is done, probably. Ciao, ciao all! (quoting Megamind there, hehe)


	2. The One Who Creeps in Corridors

Okay, so I lied, I actually continued this one before Wild Faerie Dance, only because I'm soooo hyper and couldn't focus. Wanna know why I'm hyper? ROTG comes out on DVD tomorrow. I wanna get it lol, just to see the ending. Don't tell me anything! So get reading, this is really good I think!

* * *

Pitch was tired, tired and bored. Try as he might, he couldn't sleep, not since...since...

He couldn't remember. It was probably the ball, though, probably around that time.

Why did everything backfire so badly? When he'd gone up against the Guardians, he really thought he'd have a better chance than that. He knew it was a result of years of pent-up frustration, and somehow, that didn't make things any better. It made him even angrier, like he wasn't worth their time or thoughts, being ignored. The worst thing was, though, what he was doing now.

Feeling regret.

In all honesty, it was stupid. He wasn't supposed to care, wasn't supposed to be _normal_ and _feely_ like everyone else. He just didn't like it. But there was that part, in the back of his mind, that kept telling him things.

What if they never forgive you? Look at it this way. You destroyed most of their possessions and almost shot them out of existence, not to mention offended most of them personally. North, North might. Bunnymund wouldn't, evidently, you ruined Easter completely and gave Hope a deck in the face. Tooth might - scratch that, you messed with the teeth. Not good. Sandy? Sandman wants to kill you, after all, you killed him. And don't even get started on Jack, he'd probably freeze you first and ask questions later.

No, no, the Guardians were out of the question. He couldn't do anything about the overwhelming feeling of guilt, pitiful as it was, and of course, no one on the Council of Darkness would care. A) the name sort of spoke for itself, no one really had any compassion, unless Melanctha counted, and B) he'd been expelled from that anyway, after "ruining the balance of things."

So that left Pitch, and the ten-or-so Fearlings that hadn't turned against him (the rest were off doing who-knows-what) alone, in a hole in the ground, pretty much drowning in both despair and depression.

Like the good old days,

he though gloomily, _we're back to square one._

The ball hadn't been too bad - how long ago was that, a month at most? Besides the fact that Autumn used him as her personal slave, it wasn't horrible. (To be honest, he actually didn't mind following her around as much as he would have like to. She was enjoyable.) And he'd actually played the violin for the faeries again*, like he'd used to before everything had gotten so...

Depressing.

To interrupt all his thoughts, a sort of giggle echoed through the lair. He looked up sharply from the floor, jolting his chair backwards. Mara (one of the favorite of the Fearlings) snorted, pawing at the ground. She moved backwards, toward the corner of the room. Mara? Afraid?

Pitch stood and peered around him. The laugh sounded again, creepy in all of its aspects, even down to that he couldn't see who was laughing. Why hadn't he thought of lights before? The darkness suddenly didn't seem so comforting.

"Afraid?" a voice called, laughing again. It seemed to come from behind him. Pitch jumped and turned around.

"Thought so," the voice said, giggling and moving from different parts of the room. He couldn't tell where it was coming from. It was then that he noticed a thin layer of mist had crept all around him.

"Who's there?" he called, not scared, exactly, but very wary.

"An old friend, Black. Don't play coy with me," the voice called, distinctly feminine, he noted, but couldn't put his finger on who it was.

"I don't know who you are. I'm not _playing_," he spat, annoyedly. The mist was getting thicker with each passing minute he spent standing there. Trying to find the chair, he stumbled - he could hear Mara whinny from somewhere.

"Snarky, as always," it said. "I thought you'd recognize me. After all, we were such good _friends_."

There was sarcasm in there, he could tell. He didn't like whoever it was, that was for sure, but he was too aggravated to think. Shadows that were not of his own creation circled him. They had a mist-like form, not like real shadows, but melted into everything and left smoky trails behind them. The figure was that of a girl - long hair.

"Highly doubtable," he said, looking around him to find the source.

"I think the word you're looking for is _dubious_. But, I wouldn't expect you to have a great vocabulary - you never were suited to much. In fact, you couldn't even pull off the job they gave you in the Golden Ages!"

That struck a nerve. He didn't want it to, but it did - and it seemed that the person had planned it to.

"Fortunately for you, that worked to _your_ advantage. You helped plunge the world into chaos, delicious, mortifying chaos. Screaming and terror and panic, everywhere...but there's rules, to follow, and, once again, you've broken them."

"Who are you?!" he yelled, hardly covering the emotions that the voice had caught on to. All he received in response was more dry, sarcastic laughter.

Before he could manage another ventured question, a face emerged quickly in front of him. It had raven hair that covered one side of it and bright eyes - this was all he could make out before it disappeared. Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he whirled around to find nothing but a glowing, blackish-purple light.

"Missed me," the voice sang, moving back around behind him. He turned around again, to find nothing, and it responded with "You can't catch a shadow, Pitch."

"I _am_ a shadow," he responded, crossing his arms, but still glancing frantically at everything. There was nothing to see.

"Huh...not a very good one," the voice said, lowered to a whisper - it was coming from right next to him. He didn't dare move. "Besides, you've lost all the battles you've engaged in. You're not fit to be a shadow anyway."

Now, now he was _really_ wary. That is, until the face appeared again, out of the mist, and he noted the girl had one green eye and one blue eye.

That made him mad.

"Eris, what in bloody-"

She made a noise of extreme frustration and the mist dissipated, leaving Eris standing before him. Her expression conveyed anger, impatience, and annoyance all rolled in one.

"Do you HAVE to RUIN my ENTRANCES?!" she yelled, crossing her arms, "That was a pretty good one, too!...Any _other_ comments you'd like to make, _besides_ making _my_ day miserable?"

He glared right back. "Excuse me, I think _you're _the one invading _my _home. And insulting me."

"Home? Please, kiddo, this is a _hole,_" Eris said, rolling her eyes. "And yes, I am, you're welcome."

Pitch looked at her incredulously. "And you don't care."

"No, no I don't. When I've got something to say I'm going to say it, regardless of personal boundaries," Eris retorted, looking very, very cross.

He didn't bother trying to reason with her. She was A) extremely stubborn, and B) scary. Well, not exactly scary, but creepy and dangerous, even to him. She didn't need belief from anyone - she wrecked havoc regardless of who thought she was real and who didn't.

"Any particular reason I've been honored with this...visit, today?" he asked drily. _Two_ could play the _sarcasm_ game.

"Aww, aren't you the cutest little _child_," Eris spat, the 'cutest' and 'little' sounding more like death threats than what they actually meant. "Of course there's a reason. Maybe I'd be a little nicer about it if you hadn't-"

"Hadn't what, ruined your chances of 'scaring' me? Here's something to think about - I'm fear itself, Eris."

"We're not on a first-name basis. You address me as Doom," she said, dismissively. She knew it would make him mad - she also knew that he was probably her senior, and she _should_ have owed him a little respect.

Then again, Eris never did make room for manners. Especially, especially when she didn't like someone.

Eris didn't like most people.

"Doom, then, get it over with and get _out_," he snipped.

"I'd suggest using a more...positive tone than that, Pitch. There's a certain word your name rhymes with and I'd really, really hate to be reduced to using it."

"What do you want?" Pitch sighed, giving up. When she picked a fight, she won - it actually didn't bother him, everyone except Melanctha lost to her. At least he could take more than one sentence - she'd silenced Bunnymund with nine words, that he remembered.

"Well, I assume you know that I do a little handling in the matter of knowing stuff, whether it's future or past - either you do, or you're not half as bright as I give you credit for."

He scoffed. She didn't give him _any_ credit.

"Recently, ah, recently, there's been some sketchiness in the matters surrounding _you_," Eris said, pointing a finger very abruptly at him, before pacing in a circle as was her way with these things.

"And this pertains to your little intrusion, how?"

"It _pertains_ because I felt the inclination to warn you. Don't do anything stupid."

At his look of slight confusion, Eris rolled her eyes. "I love calamity. Destruction. Chaos. Discord. Conundrum. Panic. All that sort of thing. And do you know what happens when something gets in the way...of that?"

By now she'd reverted to misty-shadow form again, probably for emphasis. He'd done the same - not that it affected him any less, that she was doing it now.

"Enlighten me," Pitch said impatiently. He wanted her out - Eris was too much trouble to be taken lightly.

"I snap something in their life like a tooth. Pick."

She broke down the syllables, holding her fist as though it could actually do some damage. He knew her powers were strong, but he had to fight the urge to laugh at her with some difficulty. Pitch recalled when Melanctha had her held back from another Council member - she'd only had to use one hand. No, the Doomfae didn't have anything to threaten him with physically, unless she'd brought her scorpions. It was of a mental sort that she had an advantage.

"I see."

"Don't make this seem petty, Black," she said, a shadow twisting around his ankle, bringing him to the floor. He looked up, aggravated. Eris smiled down, a sinister, warning smile, having reverted to her normal - if normal could be used in relation to her - self.

"If you do anything out of line, per se..."

Somewhere a Fearling neighed, and it wasn't Mara. Pitch swallowed - Eris had some leverage over them, too?

"I'll be very, very irritated."

With a final laugh and "ta-ta," Eris vanished, as did the mist that had come with her.

The nervousness which was left in her wake, however, did not.

* * *

Eris is amazing. I love her. I do have to say, though, that although Eris is really dark and creepy and it's great to write about her, I like Autumn a little smidgeon better. That and Autumn's more volatile, even if Eris is...scarier.

Review, please...I do good? Great? Terribly? Let me know so I can make it better :) 'til then, working on Wild Faerie Dance chapter 3...


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